Friday night saw St. Anne’s play Castleisland in the final of the U19 O’Gorman Cup in Thomond Park. The U19 team have been unlucky over the years reaching many finals just to fall short. The team travelled to Thomond with a sense of excitement and feeling that this was their year.

The match started with an air of nervousness and it would be Castleisland who would get their campaign off to the better start scoring an early try under the posts. This was converted to leave the score 7-0 after only 5 minutes. St. Anne’s have always had great fighting spirit and would never let this early set back get in their way. After a great team effort, Gary O Brien went over for a great team try. Harry Byrnes (Captain) converted the try to leave the score 7-7. St. Anne’s kept this momentum going and 4 minutes later Cian O’Donnell went over for a well worked try leaving the score at 12-7. With some great plays by both sides, Castleisland would score an important score just at the break of half time leaving the score at the break as 12-12.

Half time saw much needed team talks for both sides and it would be St. Anne’s who would come back out with the fighting spirit with another great try from Gary O’ Brien whoch would be converted by Harry Byrne. Score now standing at 19-12. St. Anne’s were now playing with the belief that today could be their day and leading by example Harry Byrnes goes over for another try which he then converted. Score now 26-12 with only 15 minutes left to play.

The bodies from both sides were getting tired and sore as this close contest was coming to an end. With 10 minutes remaining, Castleisland scored a well structured try bringing the score to 26-17. This was quickly followed by a Castleisland penalty leaving many of the Killaloe supporters biting their nails as the game was within a score. The final minutes of the game saw chances for both sides but the St. Anne’s boys with their fighting spirit held on for a famous 26-20 victory.

Congratulations to the team on a well fought victory.

U19 Team:

1. James Prentice
2. Felim Tuite
3. Rory Kennedy
4. Eddie Pooley
5. Kyle Collins
6. Jack Lynch
7. David Slevin
8. Gary O Brien
9. Evan Jones
10. Harry Byrnes (C)
11. Cian O Donnell
12. Ciaran Sheedy
13. Hugh Denning
14. Joseph McEvoy
15. Marc Loughran
16. James Hanly
17. Kieran Bourke
18. John Power
19. Conor Bourke
20. Liam Hart
21. Rory Miley

The U15 and U18 girls rugby teams travelled to Rockwell College this week to play in a Munster Invitational 7’s tournament. The U15 girls had a tough group but played very well getting through to the semi final. The U18’s played extremely well reaching the final after beating Rockwell in the semi final. Unfortunately they lost the final to a strong Carrick School team.

The highlight of the day was when the girls had the opportunity to meet the Irish Women’s Captain Niamh Briggs. Niamh was very complementary to the girls and gave them lots of tips for the future. The girls also had the opportunity to have their picture taken with the Women’s World Cup trophy. The girls will travel to cheer on Niamh and the rest of the Irish Women’s team on August 9th.

Four students from St. Anne’s Community College, Killaloe will put on the Green jersey of Ireland this summer at the World Junior Fastpitch Championships in Clearwater, Florida in July. This will be the first-time Ireland will be represented at the Junior World Championships after a successful trip by the first Irish Senior women’s fastpitch team to the World Championships in Vancouver last year.

Maeve Óg O Leary (Ballina), Ellen Lane (Ballina), Eithne Walsh (Ogonnelloe) and Bríd McMahon (Ogonnelloe) will represent Ireland for the first time as they line out on the U19 Junior Fastpitch team in Florida this July.

Fastpitch is a form of softball which is relatively new to Ireland although the co-ed version of Slow-pitch softball has been played since 1989. The game, which is the female equivalent of Baseball, is a game played on a diamond by two teams each with 9 players with both teams having the opportunity to play offence and defence with the team who scores the most runs winning.  Although softball has been a sport in Ireland since 1989, it wasn’t until 2014 that women’s fastpitch was introduced due to the high level of interest of the female players to compete at a higher level on a women’s team. The fastpitch senior team has competed in the European Championships 2015 and the World Championships in Vancouver last year.

The girls were introduced to the sport as part of Transition Year when their teacher, Grace Kearney a member of the Irish Fastpitch Softball team, brought her National Squad coaches to the school to introduce them to the sport. It was during this training day that the students impressed the coaches and were extended an invitation to come to an open training session in Dublin for the national squad programme.

This summer, 26 countries will be represented at the World Championships in Florida and for the first-time Ireland will send a team to compete in the youth softball flagship event.

Similar to other minority and female sports in Ireland, the teams are completely self-funded and rely on fundraising and family to help with the costs. The girls have travelled up to Dublin every second weekend for team training sessions with the rest of the National squad as well as training after school two days a week.

With only 94 days to go before the tournament, we hope that everyone gets behind the four students as they chase their dream of playing for Ireland in this major International tournament. If anyone would like to support the girls and the Irish team they can sign up to the Grand slam supporters club at http://www.softball.ie/supporters-club/ with 12 month memberships packages starting at €25.

The U15 Boys hurling team represented the school this week in the final of the Kevin Marren Cup. The played exceptionally well and came out on top in a hard fought final. Congratulations to Mr. Gleeson and Mr. E. Hayes for all their hard work with the boys throughout the year.